Dough-based products, either baked or deep fried, are popular snacks. One exemplary product comprises pretzels, in both soft, i.e., hot and fresh, and packaged, shelf-stable forms. Pretzels are often consumed with a dip and several known pretzel products comprise a dip as a filling within the pretzel body. These known products are deficient in a number of ways:
1. The traditional pretzel shape, i.e., a knot, is difficult to share as it requires ripping, cutting and/or tearing by consumers.
2. Traditional reheating methods for end consumers, including restaurant operators for known pretzels is not optimal. Microwave cooking is fast, but the product quality is compromised. Baking requires more cooking time than microwaving. Applicant is unaware of any known pretzel products comprising a filling that have been developed for deep-frying, the reasons for which are discussed further below.
3. Loss of filling during the reheating process.
4. Inconsistent salt flavoring. Addition of large particulate pretzel salt, or sea salt on various other dough-based products, results in an inconsistency of salt flavor; some bites will be salt free and bland while others will be too heavily salted.
5. Labor intensive product preparation. Some soft pretzel products, and other dough-based products, require manual application of pretzel, or sea, salt; this manual step is undesirable in a restaurant setting as well as other end user. The necessity for manually applying large particulate salt on these products is driven by the solubility of salt. As a consequence, during the adherence of the product to raw, moist dough and freezing and/or the heating process, i.e., baking, the large particulate salt may dissolve, thereby resulting in a loss of the essential characteristics of a salted pretzel, or other similar dough-based product. Adhering large particulate salt to cooked dough followed by freezing of the cooked dough product may also cause the salt to dissolve.
These essential characteristics of, e.g., pretzel salt or sea salt when applied to dough-based products, which are provided by the present invention, comprise:
1. A consistency of saltiness in each portion or bite. This characteristic is often lost in known products that rely on large particulate salt such as pretzel, sea or kosher salt when the larger particulate salt is not evenly dispersed across the product.
2. The particulate size and shaping of pretzel salt, i.e., visible irregularly shaped substantially white particles.
3. The slight crunchiness of pretzel salt or sea salt when applied to dough-based products post-heating. Deep frying of, e.g., a granulated particulate white tapioca pearl results in a softening of the granulated white tapioca to obtain a crunchiness that mimics the pretzel salt crunch, for example. In other non-pretzel applications the crunchiness of the granulated tapioca may be modified and optimized through thermal processing such as baking to obtain the desired crunchiness.